the night the incandescent lights went out in georgia

Today was a nice day.

And I’m not talking about the weather. I spent some time with my son, who celebrated his twenty first birthday yesterday and was excited to take his first trip to the wine and beer store. Who else would he want to go with him to buy spirits, but his mother?

Not that I was any help in choosing tasty beers. I have never been much of a drinker, and lucky for me, my son is much like me in that respect. He has come to the conclusion that he is not much of a beer drinker either. Nonetheless, we managed to find a few dessert beers for him to try and I have every confidence that he will partake of his choices responsibly.

Once I was back at home, Mike and I decided to tackle more of the light bulb changing around the house.

And on tonight’s episode of, “Holy shit I can’t believe they did THAT!”

I have no idea who lived in our house before we did, but they obviously did not mind astronomical electrical bills.

In our mission to change out all of the inefficient incandescent bulbs for the more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, we ran across a light fixture that was burning two one hundred watt bulbs. For those who do not understand the impact of that, it is equivalent to the energy of running a forty two inch plasma television. If left on all day, this single light fixture would cost about eleven dollars per month. Multiply that by the number of light fixtures in a single family home, and you can imagine how much that would add up to in electric bills.

Now, as if the dollars and cents of this scenario doesn’t boggle the mind enough, how about this…the light fixture was only rated for a maximum of one hundred and fifty watts. This may explain why the wires in the fixture had melted to the point of near disintegration. We have since changed out the entire fixture, using compact fluorescent bulbs with a combined wattage of twenty two watts.

So far, between the kitchen and the living room, we have made an 81% reduction in total wattage and have calculated our electric savings to come to somewhere in the ballpark of $130 per month.

I have not even gone through the four bedrooms, or three bathrooms as of yet. I am certain we will find inefficiencies (and savings) there as well.

But do not mistake my excitement as some new found love of compact fluorescent bulbs. I still hate them. But I do like saving money, and I have plans for that extra $130 a month!

Oh, and my husband told me I can leave the lights on as much as I want. I might just do that.